Eastleigh by-election: 15 February round-up

Let’s start with The Guardian, who sent their excellent live-blogger Andrew Sparrow to Eastleigh today:

"The Lib Dem candidate, Mike Thornton, has the best local credentials" @AndrewSparrow http://bit.ly/Vl9mriMark Pack

However he went on to be less impressed with the campaign for the Conservative candidate, Maria Hutchings:

“The real weakness of her campaign is that she does not seem to have come up with a good reason for voting Conservative.”

In as much as there is a message for the Conservative campaign, it’s ‘vote for the right-winger’ (see her views on abortion, immigration, asylum, Europe…). It’s a theme the Financial Times has picked up:

Cameron turns right to woo Eastleigh voters – FT.comDavid Cameron has tacked to the right in advance of the closely watched by-election in Eastleigh, telling local voters he wants to deter …

That’s a message the the Liberal Democrats are pushing too:

Eastleigh by-election: Lib Dems to paint Tories as ‘Tea Party’ option in snapshot of 2015 strategyIf 2015 brings the Lib Dems a blip rather than a near-death, it will be due to victories in seats like Eastleigh. In a microcosm of 2015’…

As for Labour and John O’Farrell, he’s got to convince people that he’s serious:

Eastleigh by-election: Labour candidate John O’Farrell deadly serious about winningMr O’Farrell said he was deadly serious about winning – and claimed the only political jokes he knew were "sitting in the cabinet"

He says that, but Labour HQ don’t seem so sure about John O’Farrell’s commitment…

Just got an email from the Labour Party. "Dear John O’Farrell, Will you go to Eastleigh to help John O’Farrell?"John O’Farrell